Income of many
senior citizens falls below the taxable limit since they do not have big income
sources. You do not need to pay income tax unless your total income exceeds the
taxable income fixed by the government every year. But on certain income
sources like interest from bank fixed deposit, company deposit, TDS applies, ie
tax is deducted on interest by the bank before it is paid to you.

If your income is below taxable limit (presently
Rs 2.5 lakhs for those over 60 years and Rs 5 lakhs for those over 80 years) and
you have interest income exceeding Rs 10,000 a year from FD or exceeding Rs
5,000 a year in case of company deposit you can submit form 15h to declare your
total income to the bank or company and it will not deduct tax on interest
payable to you.

You can download the
form from our downloads page or from your bank/company website. Filling it is
easy- just a few personal details, assessing officer details and deposit
details are required. Before starting remember that all that banks require is your name, PAN, FD details in schedule III and signature. The rest can be skipped but for those who wish to go through the pain, below are the details!

In Part I fields
1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16 are for personal details like name, PAN
and contact information. Assessment
year is to be put in field 3. If the interest applies to say 2013-14 then
relevant assessment year is 2014-15.

In field 14 you
can enter the year your income was last assessed. In fields 17 and 20 enter
present Ward/Circle and AO code. This will be same as in fields 7 and 10 unless
you have changed locality.

Field 19 can be
skipped if not applicable. In field 21 you have to select the source of income for which you are submitting the form. For FD this would be the 3rd box. In field 22 enter your total income after
deductions allowed.

Details of your
deposit is to be filled in field 23. Choose Schedule-III (Details of the sums
given by the declarant on interest). Enter your customer id and FD number,
deposit amount, start date of deposit, term duration of deposit and rate of
interest.

Finally place your signature. Part II is for
the bank/company to fill.